Josiah stepped out of the gates of the prison that had been his home for ten years. Prior to that he was incarcerated in a place run by the Massachusetts State youth authority for six…ever since he was twelve years old. In other words, he’d grown from a child to a man inside the walls of a place most people called hell on earth. But those people hadn’t lived his life. He knew hell and behind the walls of Massachusetts’ finest wasn’t it. But today, he was free…at last…and he was going to make sure that those who weren’t already burning would pay. He lifted his face to the sun and closed his eyes. He spent lots of time on the yard while he was inside, lifting, running, getting in shape for the war he knew was coming. But somehow, outside the gates, the fall Massachusetts sun felt warmer. He opened his eyes and looked around. His ride was late, but he wasn’t going to let that upset him. So many years in prison, in and out of solitary, stabbed twice, shot with rubber bullets more times than he could count…those things had taught him patience. Patience was a virtue he’d never had before and what had caused him to spend most of his life behind bars. It was too bad his old man couldn’t see him now, though. Too bad, but he knew whose fault that was, and he was going to make sure he paid…him, and his whole “family.”

Josiah watched now as a blue muscle car turned down the row of cars in front of him and came to a stop. The driver’s side door was thrown open and a big, tattooed, pierced man with a long beard that lay against his chest and ended just above his protruding beer gut stepped out and grabbed him. Josiah didn’t resist, although it was hard to be touched after so many years of solitude. But this man, his honorary uncle, was the only person on earth that had ever given two shits about him except for his father, and he was dead. Sambo was the only person from the outside that had kept in touch. He was the only one who had been there for him the night he watched his father die and the one that had been preparing things on the outside for the war that Josiah had been planning for years while he was on the inside. He patted his uncle on the back and took a step back.

“Damn, kid! You bulked up since the last time I was here.”

“Not much else to do,” Josiah said. Sambo popped open the trunk and Josiah tossed the canvas bag full of his paltry belongings inside. Slamming the trunk down, his uncle looked him over again and smiled.

‘You look like your dad.”

The mention of his father sent feelings through him that he didn’t know how to process. His counselor in the youth authority had diagnosed him with an “attachment disorder.” She said he’d never had the opportunity to “bond” with his authority figures. That made sense, as much as he hated that psychiatric mumbo-jumbo. His mother was a worthless whore and his old man had been viciously murdered when he was just eleven years old, as he watched from the shadows. It wasn’t that the old man was around much anyways, or much of an authority figure when he was. But he was his old man, and that was at least something to a kid who had nothing. Josiah had seen him as bigger than life, and then he’d had to watch him die.

After the old man was murdered, his mother just up and took off one day with one of her johns. She left him a hundred dollars and a note telling him she didn’t know when, or if, she’d be back. That started Josiah’s seething hate for women. Luckily, he didn’t have to deal with too many of them in prison. He had an affair with one of the nurses for a few years until she got caught smuggling in drugs. Stupid whore wasn’t bringing the drugs in for him. He should have known that his dick wasn’t the only one she was sucking.

After his mother died he was homeless for almost a year before he got caught stealing from a pawn shop. He tried to tell the guy that he was just hungry, but the old son of a bitch insisted on calling the cops. He had his old man’s gun on him, but he hadn’t really intended to use it. Things got heated and before he knew it, the front of the old pawn guy’s chest was ripped open and Josiah was on the run for his life. He took the cops on one hell of a foot chase, but they ended up catching him. The old guy lived, but Josiah was charged with armed robbery and attempted murder. His public defender didn’t even argue charging a twelve-year-old as an adult. He did put feelers out for family, and though none showed up, Sambo heard about what happened and he did. After hearing all of Josiah’s options, Sambo advised him to take the deal they were offering, rather than go to trial. Josiah was scared to death, so he did what Sambo told him to do. He pled guilty to armed robbery and discharging a firearm during a robbery. They dropped the attempted murder charge and instead of 25-40 years, he was given sixteen. He was twelve, almost thirteen at the time. He spent almost six years in the youth authority and then on his eighteenth birthday, he was transferred to maximum security adult prison. Sambo was there for him all the way through it, and when the kid told him what happened to his father and who was responsible, Sambo didn’t hesitate to offer to kill the man himself, but Josiah had other plans.

“We going, or what?” he asked. Sam Winters laughed.

“Yeah, boy, we’re going. Anxious to get away from this place, huh?”

“Fuck yeah.” Josiah pulled the door open and got in the front seat. Sambo got in on the driver’s side and they headed toward the gate. This had been so long in coming that it felt almost surreal to the younger man as they drove away from the prison. He sat quietly, looking out the window while Sambo rattled on about his kids and what they’d been up to. Josiah only heard half of it, but he tuned in one hundred percent when he heard the name, Jeffrey McCallister.

“So, Marshall hired a bounty hunter of all people to try and track him down…but they won’t ever find him. He was so invisible when he was alive that I’d bet he’s the most fucking transparent ghost that ever existed.” Sambo laughed again. Josiah was sure that Sambo knew exactly where any parts of Jeffrey McCallister left were, if they still existed. He was also sure Sambo was right and no one would ever find them. Josiah loved his Uncle Sam, but he also knew the man was a sick, dangerous motherfucker.

Jeffrey McCallister would not be missed. He had been a functional junkie who hated his job and his life, and he’d spent most of it wasted on Oxycontin that Sambo’s son sold him. When his habit got so bad that he couldn’t afford it any longer, Georgie, Sambo’s son and Jeffrey’s dealer, offered him a job…selling Oxy to the corporate types that he worked with. It would have been a sweet deal, but as with most junkies the opportunity to skim a little off the top was too tempting…as Georgie was sure it would be. That was how they got him to agree to the task of following Dax Marshall around. Surprisingly, thanks to the fact that McCallister was so nondescript, he was barely noticeable, he’d been good at it. He had spent nearly ten years taking photos and that culminated in the trunkful that Street Chaos currently had in their possession. It would have been much easier to get them into the hands of the cops…but then Marshall would just go to prison and Josiah and Uncle Sambo wouldn’t get to have any fun.

“What about Larry?” Josiah asked. He hadn’t liked the idea of their hiring another junkie after McCallister. The plan was never to kill the old, bald accountant. But he’d gotten way too dependent on the Oxy and Sambo was afraid of what he might say or do if he was picked up by the police. Josiah had been the one to tell them they needed to get rid of him before that happened. And now, they had another one to deal with—and Josiah knew that the more people involved in a plan, the more risk there was of getting caught. He wasn’t going back to prison…ever. Sambo had insisted to him that Larry was perfect for the job and someone else that no one would miss if they had to get rid of him. Sambo told him that one of the gangs would take care of that for them anyways. Street Chaos and the Skulls both thought Larry had been in on setting them up, and Josiah expected him to be dead by now. He realized, however, that Sambo wasn’t answering him and that he’d straightened his spine and gripped the wheel of the car more tightly. “He’s dead, right?”

“Not yet.”

“Why the fuck not?”

Sambo finally looked at him, quickly, before turning his attention back to the road. “It turns out, we were wrong. He did have family…a daughter, anyways.”

“Fuck, I told you that using him was a bad idea.”

“It’s okay, just take a breath. We’ll handle it. She’s a nobody too. She runs an inn out in Rockport, not married, no kids. We’ll handle it.” He hesitated, and Josiah realized there was more.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“Well, you know that Georgie gave Larry a phone to use to contact him? We put that tracking device in it. A few hours ago, Georgie got a text from Larry, wanting to meet up. Larry made it sound like a buy…but the thing is…”

“What’s the thing?”

“He was texting from the ranch, or at least as close to it as we could tell from where it pinged.”

“Motherfucker! So Dax Marshall knows everything?”

“No, man, calm down…”

“Stop fucking telling me to calm down!” That few moments of pride Josiah felt earlier, about his ability to be patient, was out the window. He’d spent years plotting his revenge and he had trusted Sambo and his stupid, fucking kids to handle this. If his plan went south now, he didn’t have another fucking thing in the world to live for.

“Okay,” Sambo said. “I understand that you’re upset. I was upset too, at first. But Georgie texted him back like nothing was out of the ordinary. He told him to meet up with him at the Bent Wrench.”

“The Bent Wrench? That’s their hangout, isn’t it? I used to hear the old man talk about that place. Why would he meet him there? He needs to meet him somewhere alone and fucking end him…”

“Josiah, son, you’re more like your daddy than I thought. Please, buddy, take a breath and let me finish.” Josiah didn’t take a breath, but he didn’t say anything else. After a few seconds Sambo went on, “Larry is wanted for skipping bail on a grand theft charge and a parole violation. When he gets there, the cops will be there, not Georgie. If some of the Skulls get taken down in the process then it goes right along with our plan, right?”

“Our plan is to let Dax Marshall watch as this life he’s built on the backs of other people crumbles, stone by stone. I want him to watch while Cody Miller bleeds out. I want him to watch as his old lady is raped. I want him to watch as I slit the throat of that Puerto Rican brother of his. I want him to watch like I did, the night he killed my father.”

“Dax Marshall isn’t stupid enough to ride into a set-up and he won’t send his sergeant at arms either. Larry will be escorted to the Wrench by a group of enforcers. Trust me, I was a Skull for enough years that I know how this works. Dax is an arrogant punk who should have never gotten control of that club. I want it taken from him as badly as you do.”